I am an entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker, mentor, and philanthropist with a focus on helping others to excel in their entrepreneurial ventures. I am the founder and Managing Partner of REES Capital, a mentor capital and angel investment firm. Prior to this I was the founder and CEO of MediConnect Global, Inc. With the help of a great team, I led a worldwide workforce of over 1,000 employees and we achieved over 1,500 percent revenue growth, leading the company to be acquired for $377 million in 2012. To give back, I founded the IPOP Foundation, a charity focused on educating entrepreneurs. Over two years ago I began writing a daily blog to my employees. I am continuing that blog as an Angel Investor to share the life lessons I continue to learn along my life’s journey.

Coping In A Toxic Work Environment

Recently, I had the occasion to observe a group of employees who were working in a toxic work environment. I witnessed the decline of self-esteem in each one of them as they endured month after month of poor leadership and dysfunction in their workplace. I was truly amazed at the change to the countenance of each of these employees as their situation continually grew worse. If one could have taken a before photo of these employees prior to their being in a toxic environment and then an after photo when they were months into it, the physical manifestations of the negativity they endured would be staggering. Slowly, I observed each of these employees reach their breaking point and one by one resign from the company. Each of them had good paying jobs with fabulous benefits, but the toxicity they dealt with each day was so unbearable that no amount of money would have made it worth the cost to their own self-worth. They left their jobs without having new jobs lined up because they recognized that the toll the toxic environment was taking had become far too great to stay another day.

Many of you may not be in such an extreme toxic work environment that you are willing to quit your job before having secured a new one, but most will have the occasion to deal with some level of toxicity in the workplace and could benefit from a few tips on how to cope with it when it occurs.

I believe the most important thing is to recognize when working in a toxic environment is that it is NOT a reflection of who you truly are. Often times in a toxic workplace there is an abundance of tearing others down, passive aggressive leadership, destructive gossip, conniving politics, and abundant negativity. When you are surrounded by this daily it can really start to affect your own self-worth. It is imperative that you learn to separate the negativity you are swimming in daily from the reality of who you truly are. I personally think this demoralizing effect is the biggest danger to staying long-term in any toxic environment, and to combat this you will have to find ways to daily remind yourself that you are not a reflection of your current surroundings. Placing positive and uplifting quotes on the wall of your office or cubicle that will help keep your spirits lifted can be very helpful in these circumstances. Also, taking time out each workday to take a short walk by yourself is a great way to detach and allow for positive self-talk to remind yourself of the qualities you possess that make you amazing. Find ways to remind yourself of who you truly are.

Another important coping step is to realize that you cannot control what other people say and do, you can only control your own actions and reactions. The sooner you accept that the better for your own mental well-being. This realization allows you to let go of owning other people’s negative behavior and it empowers you to focus on improving yourself. The more you can focus on improving yourself in a negative environment the better, because when you finally get the opportunity to escape the situation you are in, you will get to take all the personal growth you have made along with you. No doubt that growth will help you to be even more successful as you move forward.

Finally, try to focus on turning your bad situation into a good learning experience. Most often our strongest personal growth comes from living through our most difficult situations. When you are working in a toxic environment, try to pay close attention to the lessons you can take away from the experience. Perhaps you can learn the qualities in a leader that you never want to emulate. Perhaps you can learn the management mistakes that you would not want to repeat if the opportunity for management ever comes your way. In every bad situation there is something you can learn that will help you become a better person, so focus on each lesson you are learning.

As difficult as a toxic work environment may be, never allow yourself to become less than who you are meant to be out of anger or spite for your current employer. Always conduct yourself with integrity and always put in your very best effort toward the job you were hired to do. It is easy to fall into the trap of giving up on the job, but the bottom line is that as long as you are taking a paycheck you have an obligation to give an honest day’s work. Don’t allow yourself to justify personal bad behavior on the failures that exist your company’s leadership. I realize that at times it feels like the only way is to fight back in a toxic situation, but the reality is that doing so only hurts your own integrity. Know that your reputation will continue far beyond the company you are with today, and nothing is worth trading your integrity over. Do your absolute best every day at your job and the word will get out to other companies of your incredible character and work ethic. People talk far more in the business world than you may realize, and the word of your positive or negative behavior will spread farther and wider than you may think, so never do anything that you need to be ashamed of.

Continue to search diligently for a better work environment to switch to, and be sure to let others know that you are interested in new opportunities for work. Then give your very best at work up to the very day when you can joyfully hand in your resignation letter and move on to bigger, better, and happier things.

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I had been there… First, I believed I finally got hired by the company of my dreams, to live in Chicago and work for that company at age 24, people say “aha”…At first I was so happy, I made it, “where do you work?… my ego was so full of it “…blahalbhalbha..bye”. It didn’t took long, where I heard gossip, here and there, I noticed that no one says ‘hello” back. I was the youngest employee, and I worked with all my heart, coming in early, staying in late, I quickly stepped out of my place and did a little too good that anyone thought I would. People who worked with me got nervous, no one spoke to me, my manager was doing everything to stop me from selling, they entered me in sales training. Strange things were happening.. people didn’t really want to work, so when I worked I made them look bad… no one was really happy, the company wasn’t making money, finally a big shock came about the “it” company was sold.. Wow… Still I couldn’t deal with the politics, with the negativity, gossip, I was so unhappy… one morning I walked in.. went over to my bosses office and just quit.. i never looked back, I never had any regrets.. it took me few months to get back to feel alive.. but I did it… So my dream job turned out to be just that a dream, reality was pretty dark.

I’m currently working in a company like this now and I can’t honestly wrap my head around it. The place is straight up noxious with constant drama, constant bullying and intimidation, and constant finger blaming. I just try to remind myself that my future will be someplace better to get by.

I am in the exact similar situation. Each day I think I will quit today. The toll it is taking on my health, peace of mind is terrible. Escalating to upper management, HR has not resolved anything. I thought we had a 0% harassment tolerance policy. This has gone on for a long time. I meditate daily, eat more healthy just to ground myself, but this level of toxicity cannot be good or anyone. Perhaps tomorrow I will quit.

I’ve been in a similar situation. Reminds me of the famous line from Office Space: “…ever since I started, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.”

@Amy Rees Anderson: This is a keeper! Thank you. There are two books that I’ve recently read that I can link to your write-up. IMHO, synergy exists between the three and combined, have contributed to my learning. SHARING THE SANDBOX building and leading world-class teams in the 21st century, Dean M. Brenner | David L. Levin (Author), Don’t Just Talk, Be Heard!

People who don’t live the environment of a toxic work place, just don’t get it. Like if you are happily married, they don’t get how a divorce can be possible. Nothing my employer does is in the interest of harmony and peace for the work place. Always a tumult and argumentative and drama situation. They ask us if we would recommend our place to a friend or family member and the answer is no. Yes, people are afraid to leave because of the economy, but sometimes the stuff hits the fan and you can’t take it anymore. For every 10 things you do right in my company, they find a fault. All the HR stuff and activity days and team building is BS and I can see right through it.

Since a toxic working environment saps you of energy and productive creativity, it’s costing the company money. Most companies would, therefore, respond to such a situation – unless your department has little impact on the company bottom line, or the person who runs it is someone’s nephew, or the entire company makes money easily or doesn’t face competitive pressure or market forces linked to the quality it delivers. In other words, a toxic environment on the inside may be linked to a toxic or unethical nature of the company. I think what’s causing the stress is not the individual episodes of toxicity, but the fact that they add up to the distorted “new normal/reality” – which gives validation and impunity to the toxic individuals and puts you in the position of the odd one out and having to adjust. It’s common, unfortunately, for such companies to install bizarre “alternate realities” to validate how they operate, instead of adjusting how they operate to fall in line with a normal and fair reality. In other words, stuff straight from TFMB http://txtsfrmboss.tumblr.com/

That is the big question. For instance, I’ve often thought of just walking out, but because I could not do that to my fellow employees, I will do the right thing and give two weeks notice; however, my manager, who is the one who is the big problem, will never give me a good reference. She won’t let me go but she’s asked me twice already “If I’m quitting”. She’s dying for me to quit because the boss won’t allow her to fire me, he sees value in my work, but again at the end of the day, whether I do the right thing and give notice or I walk out because I can’t take it anymore, I’m d***ed because she’ll never give a good reference.

Thank you for writing this article. I’m going through this exact situation right now. I’m the Director (volunteer) and founder of a very successful not for profit organization. I employ over 30 staff and we have over 100 members. It is so completely rewarding. We all work together as a team and it has added greatly to our success. In just a short nine years, we’ve risen to rank 4th in the world. For a living, I work for an IME company. We only have five employees in the office and the manager is so incredibly toxic to the business. She has chosen me as her punching bag and literally every day I deal with just about everything you described above. Because I’ve worked in team environment in organizations like the one I started for nearly all my life, I never believed that such a work environment existed but it sure does. After reading this article, I have found the courage to leave this place. I make OK pay and have excellent benefits but everyday I get a migraine, my heart races and I walk out of work feeling so beaten up. Thank God I get to work on the not for profit when I go home and spend every weekend with the team. It refuels my self worth. I don’t have a job in place but I’ve decided that my mental health and happiness are much more important for me and for my family. I’m so glad I found this article!!

I really enjoyed this article. So much that I printed it out for daily motivation. I too have had the pleasure of being in this type of environment (currently and on two other occasions). If anyone has ever been in the legal field you know exactly what this feels like. There are days where I have literally cried and felt defeated. I struggled with people spreading vicious rumors and lies about me and I tried to express to them how offensive their behavior was and I never received a truthful answer. To this very day the situation became worse and it was only after reading this article that I realized it wasn’t me at all. I suggest for others like me to surround yourselves with positive people and develop a stronger relationship with God, because people who tend to behave this way often do it as therapy for their own unhappiness.

This article is so true. I worked in a child care agency where you might think these types of behavior would not exist but they do and this energy trickles down to the children. So much drama, bullying and blaming, never “how can we resolve this challenge”. Somehow I thought I could make a difference and I do believe I did with the children and parents I interacted with as the children loved coming to the program and the parents always knew I was opened to discuss any concerns. The more positive things parents said about my teaching style the more my two immediate supervisors seemed to want to find fault with me. One day I was told one parent had written a letter about me and how she had seen such a remarkable change in her child and so I asked for a copy and was immediately told unfortunately they could not give me the letter because this parent said something negative about the previous teacher’s style. Several weeks later this parent asked me if I had seen the letter she wrote and when I said I hadn’t, she said she would email me a copy. Interesting no negative comments about the previous teacher, only positive things about her son’s change since I took over. I made the mistake of making copies for my assistants as they were positively mentioned and that was when they went on the attack. I was told I would have the same age group and then I was given the two year olds, they thought I would hate it as I am in my sixties and I really found it enlightening as it had been years since I had been years since I had interacted with them. They were teaching me something new everyday. Now when this did not work they started bringing me in every Friday afternoon to criticize something I did. The Monday after the second time I was coming from another room and the director looked in my classroom and did not see me so when I said good morning to her she looked shocked. She thought surely after the Friday I would not return. My last week was horrible and the only reason I stayed was I knew I would probably not secure another job again so at least I could collect unemployment. During my last week some of the women over fifty came to me and said they had to do whatever they were told because they needed the job. I miss the children and their energy, but I am grateful to be away from such a toxic environment.